New Yorkers like Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed $400 property-tax rebate – but they would have been even happier if he nixed the sales tax on clothing under $110, a new poll yesterday found.

Given a choice, 55 percent of city residents would have chosen to eliminate the 8.65 percent sales tax on clothing and footwear under $110, compared with 14 percent who would have taken the rebate, according to the poll by Quinnipiac University.

Twenty-three percent wanted a cut in real-estate taxes.

Even though it wouldn’t have been their first choice, 66 percent still thought the mayor’s $400 rebate is a good idea.

“This poll was conducted during one of those tax-free shopping weeks, so maybe voters were a little more focused on that sales tax,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.

“When they had the choice, New Yorkers remembered that they buy clothes and they don’t like paying taxes on them,” Carroll added.

Bloomberg yesterday continued to push state lawmakers and Gov. Pataki to allow the tax to expire this June, as scheduled. Pataki is instead proposing four tax-free weeks in which the clothing exception would be under $500.

“Taxes really hurt people,” Bloomberg told a group of Co-op City residents in The Bronx. “And I certainly am in favor of doing what we promised to do in . . . taking away the tax on clothing.”

The mayor’s language yesterday wasn’t as strong as when he testified in Albany last month and used Pataki’s own catchphrase – calling it a “job-killing tax” – to bash the clothing tax.

Bloomberg touted his property-tax rebate, saying that New Yorkers who “stepped up to the plate” and paid higher taxes while the city was in dire straits now deserve to be rewarded.

“It’s time to let those people who a year ago had to reach into their pocket deeper [and] let them reach into their pocket a little less,” the mayor said. “We should deliver what we promised.”

The mayor also responded to a poll released a day before that found blacks and Latinos have less favorable views of him than whites, saying he couldn’t “think of any place I’ve been more warmly received than among every ethnic community in this city.”

After the Co-op City crowd loudly clapped in approval, the mayor snipped, “You can write or have on television the applause, and I’ll rest my case when it comes to that.”

Other findings in yesterday’s poll include:

* Despite his much-touted initiative to fix the city’s public school system, only 29 percent of voters said the mayor has made “substantial progress.”

* Police Commissioner Ray Kelly continues to be the most popular prominent official, earning a 65 percent approval rating.